Bread

You may feel like bread making is an art you can live without, but if you really like to know how good food is made from the bottom up, and/or like me you live in a town where the baking sector of the economy is underdeveloped, you might want to reconsider, especially with the abundance of good books on artisinal baking that are now available. Some of you know that I have been extremely interested in Peter Reinhart’s book, The Bread Baker’s Apprentice, which if full of beautiful photos—and so looks like a coffee table book—but in fact is a great baking resource. The author has his own blog over at www.peterreinhart.typepad.com, and there is a lot of interesting material there. He has a new book on whole-grain baking that I have not worked with yet but if The Bread Baker’s Apprentice is any indication it will be worth having on your shelf.

Today I made what Reinhart calls pain à l’ancienne. It involves a slow overnight fermentation so I mixed up the dough last night using cold water (20 minutes), left it in the refrigerator for the night, took it out for a couple of hours this morning to wake up the yeast, and baked it around midday. I probably spent about an hour and a half shaping the loaves and baking them today, not counting the time the dough spent waking up unattended and the time I spent going out for camera batteries to take pictures. So for about two hours work I have six excellent baguettes.

I won’t go through the bread-making process right now, having just written a long post about pasta. Suffice to say that they are excellent baguettes and freeze well. I put them in Louise’s lunch bag straight out of the freezer and by midday they are perfect. Granted, they take some time to prepare (but not that much), but if you can build up a supply on the weekend you will have a greatly enhanced quality of life through the week.

I am planning a future post about pork belly, of which I have several pounds, thanks to Nature's Harmony Farm near Elberton, GA. Tim and Liz Young have a great operation dedicated to sustainable agriculture You can check out their farm blog at http://www.naturesharmonyfarm.com/grass-fed-meat-farm-blog/. Typically, we buy their products through Athens Locally Grown, one of the co-ops operating in the area. They, too, have a blog, available at http://athens.locallygrown.net/weblog.